


"Don't ever try to surprise me again"

by Amy_Snow



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Car Accidents, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 19:39:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1047798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amy_Snow/pseuds/Amy_Snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim isn't calling back and Bones is getting worried. The phone call he gets instead of Jim's doesn't help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Don't ever try to surprise me again"

“Damn it, Jim! What’s going on?” Leonard McCoy grunted into the phone before hanging up. He was getting increasingly frustrated with his husband. Jim had gone to visit his mother in Iowa for her birthday and Leonard hadn’t been able to get the time off, but promised Jim that it was fine. He was only going to be there for a few days and was supposed to start driving back tomorrow to make it home in time for their anniversary. Jim had been calling to check in everyday he’d been gone at least once to say goodnight to Joanna and usually more to just to talk and tell Bones about what was going on and laugh at every eye-roll he could practically hear through the phone. Now Joanna had just been tucked in and finally fallen asleep, but not without disappointment at the lost of Jim’s bedtime story, and there had been no word from Jim.

He sat on the couch and let his head rest against the back of it. When he heard the phone ring, he jumped up to answer it. “Jim? Are you okay, kid? You better not pull this agai-”

“Dr. McCoy?” A voice that was not Jim’s asked.

“Christine?” he answered in steady voice, confused.

“Jim’s been in a car accident. He came in about an hour ago and we’ve stabilized him, but we can’t really do much more right now. I’m sorry,” She said in a soft voice that did nothing to soften the stab he felt as he listened to her words.

“He wasn’t supposed to be driving home until tomorrow,” was all he could get out.

“I’m so sorry. He was going to surprise you and get home early..... Another driver ran a red light and hit the driver’s side of Jim’s car.”

Bones cleared his throat. It sounded bad. It really did, but he couldn’t cry, couldn’t get mad, because Jim wasn’t gone. There was no way Jim was gone. “Just give me time to find someone to watch Joanna and I’ll be there.”

“Okay. Dr. McCoy, he’s going to be okay,” she said calmly.

“Yeah, I know,” he responded before hanging up and he was trying his hardest to believe it. He made his way back to his daughter’s room and looked at her sleeping for a few minutes before kneeling beside her bed and lightly tapping her shoulder. “Honey, I have to go somewhere for a little while. I’m going to have Grandma Elenora come watch you, okay?”

“Where are you going, daddy?” She asked sleepily.

His breath caught in his throat. He should have known she would ask, but he knew he couldn’t tell her. She might ask to come and he didn’t know what condition Jim was in and he didn’t know if he could handle it or how to prepare Joanna. “I just have to check on something at the hospital. Don’t worry I’ll be back soon.” She looked at him skeptically, but nodded sleepily and closed her eyes again.

He quickly thanked his mother when she arrived and drove to the hospital. When he got there, he rushed to the room Jim was in. There were bandages around his head, his right arm was in a cast, and he was too still. He pulled the chair next to the bed and carefully cupped Jim’s cheek. “You gotta pull through, darlin’,” he said quietly, running his thumb along a cut on the other man’s cheekbone. He felt tears burning at the back of his eyes and he squeezed them shut, running his hands over his face. He couldn’t let himself feel the lost, not yet. There wasn’t a lost to feel. “Goddamn it, Jim. You couldn’t have waited one more day?”

Bones called Elenora to let her know he would be spending the night at the hospital and decided he would wait until the morning to tell Winona what had happened. He carefully laid down on the bed next to his husband and put a hand on Jim’s chest to feel the slow rise and fall. Bones closed his eyes and blocked out the beeping of the monitors and convinced himself that this was just another night. That the reason that he was so relieved to feel the heartbeat underneath his fingers was because Jim had been away and he really never had been able to get a decent night’s sleep without it. He placed a kiss on the corner of Jim’s mouth and fell asleep after whispering “Love ya, kid” in the other man’s ear.

 

Bones was startled to wake to lazy kisses and another hand holding his own. “Happy anniversary, Bones,” Jim said, resting his forehead on his husband’s.

“Don’t ever try to surprise me again,” Bones said sternly. “You’re not very good at it.”

Jim laughed and kissed the glare from Bones’ face. “You are no fun.”

**Author's Note:**

> So, I had this idea that I didn't get to work in, but I was going to Jim's anniversary gift to Bones be a book of fairy tales for Joanna so that she won't have to suffer through Bones' terrible story telling.


End file.
